Chapter Text
“Captain?”
Odysseus stared at the water. “I have to see her.”
“But we’ll die,” Eurylochus said. He looked at Odysseus desperately pleading for his captain—his brother—to do something. Anything.
Surely he could get them all away. He got them away from Poseidon.
He refused to look at him. “I know.”
The words hit him, and Eurylochus accepted his fate.
The remaining crew ran at Odysseus with their swords, and he just stared blankly. Eurylochus watched their desperate, futile attempt to undo what they’d done and closed his eyes.
Zeus laughed, and the pain of being struck by lightning was worse than any other pain he had felt in his life.
His body felt like it was on fire, burning on the inside. He screamed in anguish, crumbling onto the ground.
Then everything faded.
Eurylochus woke up with sand in his mouth. His body burned and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t see anything—only blurry outlines—and his ears were ringing. There was a warmth next to him, a fire perhaps.
How was he still alive?
He vaguely remembered waves and someone grabbing his body. He remembered being dragged from the shore onto dry land.
Every breath was painful and horrendously difficult. Every so often his body would involuntarily spasm, causing more pain. He could barely move, and every movement hurt.
He cried out for his mother, for his wife.
What would Ctimene think of him now? Would she still take him, or would she cast him aside?
No, there was no way he would survive like this, much less get home. He was completely paralyzed and blind.
Something moved him over and he cried out, jerking away, which only made him scream more.
“Eurychlus, stop it!” A man shouted at him. His ears were ringing, and it was hard to make out the voice. “You’ll hurt yourself!”
Odysseus. It was Odysseus’ voice. The traitor.
He was going to kill him for the mutiny. For the cattle. Eurylochus wanted to kill him for what he did with Scylla and Zeus.
He tried to pull away, but it was agonizing. Odysseus held him still.
“Get away!” Eurylochus struggled in his grip, grimacing through the pain.
Odysseus took a shaky breath. “If I get away from you, you’ll die.”
“I’ll die anyway!” His body trembled and he relented. “And I don’t want to live like this.”
“You won’t live like this,” Odysseus said. He said something else that Eurylochus couldn’t make out over the ringing in his ears.
“What?” He asked.
“You’re. Going. To. Be. Fine,” Odysseus overly enunciated the words so Eurylochus would understand. “As long as nothing goes wrong.”
Eurylochus closed his eyes. Perhaps they were both dead and in Tartarus, and this was their punishment.
Odysseus pulled off the bits of charred clothing that he could while Eurylochus cried in pain. He shivered, moving towards the fire.
“I’m just cleaning your wounds, okay?” Odysseus told him. “I’m going to pour some water on it, which might sting. Do you understand?”
Eurylochus tried to say yes, but it came out as more of a pained groan.
Odysseus poured the water onto his side and Eurylochus screamed. He didn’t understand why Odysseus was helping him.
Odysseus gave Eurylochus new clothes, since his had been charred to his skin and was completely ruined. He told him it used to be a sail.
Days passed and Eurylochus couldn’t keep track. Odysseus would leave and come back from foraging and hunting.
He fed Eurylochus fruits and strange (and gross) plants while the fish cooked on the fire. He would wash his wounds and pour water into his mouth, then feed him fish by hand.
He hated being entirely reliant on someone else for his survival. Especially Odysseus.
He kept insisting he would recover, but Eurylochus was sure his wounds would become infected, and he would die a slow and agonizing death. And if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure if he would ever see or hear again.
Then one day, his peripheral vision started to clear. Odysseus was gone when he woke up.
He could finally see the shelter Odysseus built. It was a simple structure made from pieces of ship wreckage. Eurylochus didn’t know whether it was their ship or another one.
It was felt together by ropes Odysseus must’ve found. He also repurposed a sail as a tarp for the roof. Eurylochus thought it was the same one as the chiton Odysseus had crudely fashioned. He also appeared to be using the remaining scraps as Eurylochus’ bandages.
A couple of items were in the shelter—a few amphora jars, some pots and bottles. Odysseus seemed to be collecting anything that washed up on the beach.
Eurylochus’ body felt slightly less jittery, but he would still convulse every so often. But his ears were still ringing.
Odysseus came back carrying a jar with several massive honeycombs inside of them. He had a bee sting on his cheek. Eurylochus couldn’t really see him still, but he saw that his blue cape was now fully ragged. “I found honey.”
“Why?” Eurylochus asked. What could he possibly need that for.
“Honey is antiseptic,” Odysseus rolled his eyes, like Eurylochus was somehow supposed to know that. “It’s not perfect, but your wound isn’t infected and it’s best as a preventative.”
Odysseus pulled his sword out of his cape and cut off a piece of it. Eurylochus winced. “Isn’t that cape enchanted? Why are you ruining it even more?”
“It still works,” Odysseus put his sword back in the cape, then pulled it back out. “Your vision came back?”
“Only a little,” Eurylochus closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at Odysseus right now.
“You can hear better, too,” Odysseus commented. Eurylochus supposed that was true, but it hurt his head to focus.
He started crushing the honey with his sword, filtering it with the scrap of his cape. He walked over to the spring and started wringing the honey out.
Eurylochus opened his eyes when he came back. Odysseus brought it over to Eurylochus.
He unwrapped the bandages and folded them. “It’s starting to look better.”
Eurylochus didn’t respond. Odysseus silently poured the honey onto his wounds. It stung more than he expected. He wrapped them with clean bandages and went to the stash of food.
Eurylochus watched out of the corner of his eye. “Why are you helping me?”
Odysseus grabbed a few strange berries that Eurylochus had never seen before. “I have to.”
“Why do you have to? You already chose yourself over me,” he said. “Over, and over, and over again.”
Odysseus took a deep breath and walked over, forcing the berries into Eurylochus’ mouth. “Shut up.”
Odysseus kept changing his bandages every morning and night. He would clean it with water, pour fresh honey, wrap it in a new bandage, then he would boil it in water and dry it in the sun. Eurylochus would sometimes catch him changing his own bandages around his chest, and his stomach would churn with indescribable feelings.
He had several bandages designated for Eurylochus, and cycled through them. He made sure to clean them thoroughly before reusing them.
He had nightmares of Odysseus offering him up to Scylla, of Zeus killing him. Sometimes when Odysseus was tending his wounds, he was afraid he would decide to take revenge.
Eurylochus shouldn’t be alive. There was no reason for him to be alive. But against all odds, he kept recovering. By the end of the first week, his vision improved from blurry to dim, and his hearing started to slowly improve.
“When you get better, we’ll go home,” Odysseus kept saying. “I just… don’t know when that will be.”
“How do you know how to do all these things?” Eurylochus asked.
Odysseus finished dressing the wound. “Athena taught me.”
Of course she did.
“How are we going to get home?” Eurylochus asked. “We’re trapped here.”
“We’ll build a raft,” Odysseus insisted. “We’ll navigate with the stars.”
“We’ll run out of food,” he said. “We’ll die.”
“We’ll stock enough food to last us,” Odysseus said.
“What about Poseidon?” Eurylochus asked. Odysseus didn’t have a response to that.
“You’re getting better,” he said, changing the subject. “So hopefully we can leave soon.”
Eurylochus stared at him. He didn’t know if it was his limited vision, but he looked so pale, so gaunt and lifeless.
They really needed to get out soon.
Eurylochus met the Princess of Ithaca for the first time when he was nine years old and she was seven.
Eurylochus had apprenticed as a blacksmith and his master was commissioned to make a necklace for Princess Ctimene. Eurylochus was in charge of taking her measurements and everything she wanted.
She kept fidgeting every time he tried to take her measurements. He silently sent a prayer to Hephaestus.
“I want it made of gold, of course,” she told him. He nodded, writing down her measurements. “And I want it embedded with pearls.”
He nodded again and began sketching a rough design of the necklace.
“Can you make the pearls bigger?” She asked him.
He looked at the papyrus paper and smudged away the pearl, then drew it slightly bigger. The ink stained his hands.
“No, actually I want it smaller,” she changed her mind.
He grumbled, but wiped away the pearl again and redrew it exactly the way it was the first time.
She looked at the paper, humming thoughtfully. “No, actually bigger.”
The drawing was practically ruined at this point. Eurylochus glared at her. “You’re really annoying, you know.”
Ctimene scoffed, looking at him indignantly. “I’m your princess, you know!”
“So what?” He said. “That doesn’t make you any less annoying.”
She glared at him, but looked at the boy with interest. He wondered if anyone had ever dared to talk like that to her, if he would get in trouble because he had.
But Ctimene didn’t tell on him. In fact, she started asking to come with her brother when he got new arrows for his bow. They talked while Odysseus looked through arrowheads. He tried to find her annoying, but she slowly endeared herself to him despite his best efforts.
“I worship Artemis, you know,” she told him.
“Don’t all girls?” He asked.
“Yeah, but I started hunting with my mother,” Ctimene said. “She used to hold her quiver while Lady Artemis hunted, and she promised to teach me everything.”
Eurylochus snorted, refusing to believe what she said was true. “Sure.”
“It’s the truth!” She crossed her arms. “I bet you worship Hephaestus.”
He looked around the forge. “Obviously.”
“Alright, Eurylochus, I’ve decided on this arrowhead,” Odysseus interrupted the conversation, coming into the room. He held a mold for an arrow that would pierce the skin but not ruin the meat. A good choice for hunting.
He nodded, bowing to the king. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
“You don’t have to call me that,” Odysseus said, frowning.
Eurylochus’ condition steadily improved while Odysseus dutifully cared for him. By the third month, he could walk out of the shelter and around the camp. With Odysseus’ help.
“You don’t need to hold my hand,” he insisted, taking a step forward while steadying himself on a tree. Odysseus stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder. It hurt, but Eurylochus knew he had to. “I’m fine.”
His vision and hearing had improved to be near-normal, but he would still occasionally hear ringing, and colors weren’t as bright as they used to be. It hadn’t improved anymore past that, and Eurylochus didn’t think it would get any better.
“You’ll fall and reopen your wounds,” Odysseus said. “Then we’ll be back where we started.”
Eurylochus knew he was right, but he didn’t like it.
“Do you think…” Odysseus hesitated. Eurylochus looked at him expectantly. “Do you think if you survived, anyone else did too?”
“No,” Eurylochus said without thinking and Odysseus’ face fell. “If they weren’t killed by Zeus, they drowned. And if they didn’t drown, then they were too injured.”
“Yeah,” he said, still helping Eurylochus walk. “…yeah.”
“I still don’t know how I lived,” Eurylochus said. “I don’t think I was supposed to.”
“I grabbed you and pulled you onto a piece of driftwood,” Odysseus admitted. “I didn’t know you were alive, I just… wanted to bury you when we got to shore. But then I realized you were, so I kept you warm until we reached land.”
“Why would you do that?” Eurylochus asked. “After what we both did.”
“Because you're my sister’s husband,” Odysseus told him. “I’m getting you home to her. It’s my job.”
Eurylochus couldn't understand him. “But you’re the reason I’m like this.”
“Which is why I have to do this, okay?” Odysseus desperately pleaded to him. “Please.”
Eurylochus hadn’t expected that. “Alright.”
Eurylochus insisted on going with Odysseus to forage despite the pain. He refused to be entirely reliant on Odysseus.
The island was actually rather beautiful. It was mountainous with a forest surrounding it, and a river ran down it and into a lake, which Eurylochus collected water from. It wasn’t big enough for any truly dangerous predators.
Eurylochus picked berries that Odysseus deemed acceptable and ignored the ones he told him to avoid.
“Did you perform last rites for the crew?” Eurylochus asked while they walked down the beach.
Odysseus shook his head. “We don’t have their bodies, or even anything to give as offerings.”
Eurylochus didn’t like that. “We could at least pray.”
“We can do it when we get home,” Odysseus said. “And we can do it properly.”
Eurylochus could see the fish eating algae as the sun rose. Odysseus hovered over them, pulling out a makeshift spear from his cape.
Once they had enough fish, Odysseus kept walking along the beach. They eventually stumbled across a wrecked ship. It didn’t look like any he had seen in Greece.
Odysseus walked into it and pulled himself onto the deck on the ship. Eurylochus followed, staring at the multiple skeletons. He shivered.
“This is the shipwreck I used to build our shelter,” Odysseus explained, helping Eurylochus onto the deck. “I think they were pirates.”
“What are we here for?” He asked, wincing as he strained his muscles. He still felt sore.
“The sails,” Odysseus said. “Now that you’re better, we’re going to build a raft and get out of here.”
Odysseus and Eurylochus finished the raft and walked it to the beach. As they did, the air changed.
Eurylochus could feel the moisture in the air. He looked up, seeing the dark clouds forming above them. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“Yes,” Odysseus said. “We have to get out of here.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance and Eurylochus fought against memories. Then it started to rain.
“We can’t go out like this,” he stopped walking. “We have to go back to our shelter.”
“We can’t wait anymore,” Odysseus insisted. “We’ve waited long enough.”
“Odysseus—” Eurylochus dropped the raft. Odysseus glared at him and kept dragging it towards the beach. “Odysseus, what are you doing?”
“I’m going out there,” he said, pushing the raft into the water. The rain grew heavier.
“You can’t go out there in a storm,” Eurylochus said.
“I have to see her,” Odysseus said. “I have to see my son.”
Eurylochus laughed. “You don’t have any food. You’ll die.”
“You don’t understand—” Odysseus started, and Eurylochus couldn't take it anymore.
“You think I don’t understand?!” He screamed. “I miss Ctimene every fucking day, and still, I would never be as reckless as you!”
Five hundred and ninety-nine men, dead under his command. Lightning crackled and Eurylochus couldn't breathe.
“Captain?”
“I have to see her.”
“But we’ll die.”
“I know.”
“Please don’t go!” Eurylochus didn’t know how he ended up on his hands and knees. He must’ve looked pathetic, grabbing his brother-in-law, king, and former captain’s ankles and sobbing. “I’ll do anything—please don’t go!”
Odysseus looked at Eurylochus. He stared at the raft, then back at him.
They were silent as rain fell.